Dialysis is an important treatment regimen for a variety of chronic diseases. Dialysis to support a patient, whose renal function has decreased to the point where the kidneys no longer sufficiently function, is well known. To meet the need for regular care, patients often travel to hospitals or dialysis centers. A nurse or patient care technician usually oversees dialysis treatment sessions at such centers.
With the advent of more affordable equipment, home dialysis is increasingly an option for many dialysis patients, who find it offers them greater privacy, flexibility of scheduling, and overall comfort. Home provision of hemodialysis can also be advantageous to health care providers, because it does not require the nursing, equipment, and overhead costs of standard in-center care. Government and private insurers also stand to benefit, because home hemodialysis tends to lower coverage costs over the long term.
Two principal dialysis methods are utilized, hemodialysis, and peritoneal dialysis. In hemodialysis, the patient's blood is passed through an artificial kidney dialysis machine. A membrane in the machine acts as an artificial kidney for cleansing the blood. Extracorporeal treatment usually involves special machinery and a visit to a center, such as a hospital or an out-patient facility, where the treatment is performed.
To overcome some of the disadvantages associated with hemodialysis, peritoneal dialysis was developed. Peritoneal dialysis is a medical procedure for removing toxins from the blood and takes advantage of the semi-permeable membrane surrounding the walls of the abdomen or peritoneal cavity. During a peritoneal procedure, a solution is introduced into the patient's abdomen, where it remains for up to several hours, removing blood toxins via osmotic transfer through the peritoneal membrane. At completion of the procedure, the solution is drained from the body along with the toxins. In continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis, a dialysis solution is introduced into the peritoneal cavity utilizing a catheter, normally placed into position by a surgical placement physician. An exchange of solutes between the dialysate and the blood is achieved by diffusion.
During the course of kidney disease, the needs and capabilities of a patient can change with respect to dialysis. While at times hemodialysis may be the appropriate treatment, at other times peritoneal dialysis may be the best treatment. For example, the peritoneum of a patient undergoing peritoneal dialysis may degenerate overtime so that it can no longer serve as a sufficient membrane for discharging toxins, solutes, and excess fluids. The patient would then likely need to be switched to hemodialysis if kidney transplantation is not available. For greater flexibility and cost-savings, it would be advantageous to be able to use a common machine to perform hemodialysis or peritoneal dialysis, depending on the patient's dialysis requirements. Accordingly, there is a need for materials and methods for utilizing a dialysis machine interchangeably between a peritoneal dialysis mode and a hemodialysis mode.